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THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.E.A.S., ON 



them, even as are the Britons of the present day attracted 

 by words from the Greek and the Latin languages, in which 

 they form compomids to keep the plain man in ignorance, and 

 of which the man of Board-School education can never gather 

 the sense unless he seek the meaning in a dictionary — and lucky 

 must he count himself if he find there what he wants. It must 

 be conceded, however, that the case of the plain Babylonian of 

 ordinary education was much worse, for there were no really 

 good dictionaries which he could consult — he had to go to a 

 word-list, and hunt it up there. It was good in those days 

 to have a really learned scribe as one's friend. 



And so Nebuchadrezzar the king, or his scribe, inserted here, 

 to give character and a kind of local colour to the passage, a 

 dozen Sumerian words with which to describe the wonders of 

 the " Place of Fate " — the Ki-namtartarraene — and the " August " 

 or " Holy Abode," Du-azaga, and the " Place of Assembly," 

 Ub-su-ukkina wherein " the Divine King, the god of heaven 

 and earth, the lord of heaven," dimmer Lugal dimmer ana kia, 

 mul-ana, entered, and the gods of heaven and earth with reverence 

 obeyed him. This took place at the Zagmuku, which the king's 

 text explains as " the beginning of the year " — rU satti, the 

 Heb. Rdsh hashshanah, " head of the year." The ceremony 

 performed on these occasions symbolized the release, by Merodach, 

 of the rebellious gods, who, at the Creation, fought against 

 the gods in the heavens — the holy ones whom the Babylonians 

 worshipped.* 



But it was always the great temple of Merodach and the 

 " Tower of Babel " connected with it which attracted Nebuchad- 

 rezzar's attention, for he says that he "overlaid the shrine of the 

 god with shining gold, a splendid decoration, and made bright 

 the vessels of E-sagila with massive gold, and Ma-kua, the 

 " bark of Merodach*" with enamel and stones. " As the stars 

 of heaven the shrines of Babylon I caused to be made, I 

 maintained " 



And then he turns his attention to E-temen-ana-ki, the Tower 

 of Babylon, whose head he raised with burnt brick and shining 

 lapis-stone. As this is a very rare and valuable substance, 

 difficult to obtain in any great quantity, it is to be conjectured 



* See the Journal of the Victoria Institute for 1909, pp. 115-6, and the 

 reprint of this paper in the American Records of the Past, March- 

 April, 1910, p. 100. 



